Florida's New Attorney General Targets Pill Mills and OxyContin Addiction

December 31, 2010
By
Novus Medical Detox Center

Share

Florida's new attorney general, Pam Bondi, has announced she will push
for additional legislation to toughen the state's crackdown on so-called
"pill mills" - the hundreds of notorious pain clinics that contribute
to the massive Florida OxyContin addiction problem.

"Just the other day I had someone say that a friend's child overdosed,"
Bondi, the first woman to serve as Florida's attorney general, said
in a recent interview. "I said, 'It was OxyContin, wasn't
it?' They said, 'How did you know?' It's so widespread
in our state. That's something we don't want to be known for."

Attorney General Bondi has appointed Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres,
to lead a new office in the A-G's department that will focus on
prescription drug abuse, which costs the state hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The fact
that Aronberg is a Democrat doesn't matter, Bondi said, because he's
very familiar with this issue and cares very deeply about it.

Calling Florida "the drug supplier for the rest of the country,"
Aronberg told the media that he and Bondi both believe that "public
safety isn't a partisan issue. Florida has become the drug supplier
for the rest of the country, and with seven Floridians a day dying from
prescription drug abuse, urgent action is needed."

Florida's out-of-control pill mills fuel not only Florida's OxyContin
addiction, they flood the Southeastern and Central states and the entire
east coast all the way to Maine with millions of OxyContin and other prescription
narcotic pills every year. Addicts and drug dealers from all over the
country use Florida's pill mills as a primary source of supply for
illicit prescription drugs.

Battle against Florida OxyContin addiction not helped by closing of Office
of Drug Control

A 2010 report by the governor's Office of Drug Control (ODC) called
abuse of prescription drugs "the major public health and safety problem
facing Florida." The ODC has been the primary driving force behind
the state's budding
Prescription Drug Monitoring System.

But Florida's new governor-elect Rick Scott blind-sided everyone's
hopes for effective action against Florida's prescription drug abuse
and OxyContin addiction nightmare by closing the ODC, ostensibly as a
cost-cutting measure.

Meanwhile, the badly needed Prescription Drug Monitoring System, which
holds such high hopes to help reduce Florida's OxyContin addiction
rates, and all other prescription drug abuse problems, was still struggling
to become reality.

Already shown to work well in at least two dozen other states, a computerized
prescription system allows doctors and pharmacists to track prescriptions
and drug sales, helping provide legitimate patients with better health
care. Doctors and pharmacists can see a patient's prescription drug
history at a glance, which helps avoid potentially dangerous drug interactions,
allergies and overdoses.

But prescription drug monitoring systems also allow doctors, pharmacists
and if necessary, law enforcement personnel, to more easily prevent illicit
"doctor shoppers" from acquiring fraudulent prescriptions. Florida's
prescription drug monitoring system could conceivably be expanded beyond
drug stores to include pain clinics and pill mills, which sell drugs directly
to the public and contribute so much to Florida's prescription drug
abuse and OxyContin addiction epidemic.

Bruce D. Grant, the ODC's director, found out unceremoniously in an
email that his four-person team was to be eliminated. Yet it was the dedicated,
hard-working ODC team that raised the initial public and private funding
that got the program started and underway. The team has continued to champion
additional fundraising, and needed legislation, to get the program off
the ground and into a test phase.

Scott's idea of handing over the work of the ODC in bits and pieces
to various offices in the Department of Health is woefully inadequate,
if not utterly unworkable. The health department is already stretched
far too thin to add prescription drug abuse to its daily battle plan.

In fact, Scott's abrupt elimination of the ODC not only raises questions
about the future of the much heralded prescription drug monitoring program,
it raises serious questions about Scott's true personal position regarding
the billion-dollar pill mill industry. By his actions, Scott's campaign
promises for action against Florida's prescription drug abuse problem,
so typified by OxyContin addiction, appear to be the typical empty assurances
of the worst kind of self-interested politician.

OxyContin addiction is best met with medical OxyContin detox

Many OxyContin detox programs don't create a fully personalized detox
program based on each patient's unique health needs. Instead, they
apply the same OxyContin detox program to everyone who enrolls. Such programs,
called "one-size-fits-all", have made many people that could
be helped stay away from all OxyContin detox centers - they've either
tried such programs and failed to achieve their goals, or they've
heard the horror stories.

At Novus Medical Detox Center in Florida's Pasco County, there are
no one-size-fits-all detox programs. Every OxyContin detox program is
personally tailored to match the exact needs of each and every patient.

Healthy, delicious meals and nutritional supplements to help speed healing

A happy conclusion usually within one or two weeks, withdrawn from all
dependent substances and not taking any new drugs.

Novus Medical Detox Center is located in a quiet, semi-rural corner of
Florida's Pasco County, a perfect setting for private drug and alcohol
treatment. And like all our detox programs, Novus OxyContin detox program
works without the pain and misery so often associated with this vital
first step back to a life free from dependence.